Welcome to the Theatre Dictionary’s conversation about the term deus ex machina.

On deus ex machina’s official page, we explain that the Latin term translates as “god from the machine,” which has evolved to mean “not just a god saving the day, but any contrived ending that introduces a new element to solve the story’s central problem.” But now we want to know what the term deus ex machina means to you. You can use the comments section to tell us.

– Which shows have you seen that employed a deus ex machina and ended a little too abruptly and conveniently?

– Can you think of any shows where a deus ex machina was used in a funny or satirical way?

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” If you’ve ever felt this about a play or movie, you may have just encountered a deus ex machina, from the Latin meaning “god from the machine.” In ancient Greece, tragic playwrights who had created gnarly dramatic situations
occasionally wrote abrupt endings in which an actor playing a god or
hero would be delivered to the stage by a crane to resolve a seemingly
insoluble crisis.

The dramatist Euripides (480-406 B.C.E.) was notorious for using this plot device. At the end of his play Medea, for example, the murderous heroine escapes her husband’s wrath by flying off stage in a chariot pulled by dragons. Euripides’ use of the deus ex machina was so well-known that his rival, the satirist Aristophanes, wrote a parody in which Euripides himself descends from a
crane in a silly, ill-fated attempt to save his friend Mnesilochus from a
blood-thirsty horde of women.”